Even when he is dealing with events that took place during the tyranny of the Thirty, though no doubt feeling still ran high, we have the impression that only that part of the community which had been directly concerned in promoting or thwarting the Revolution would be keenly interested in the process of punishing or rewarding those who had played minor parts: the majority had acquiesced, with greater or less unwillingness, at the time of the changes, and now that the trouble was past, were eager to make the best of the present; political memory at Athens was short. The position of Demosthenes was very different; his chief activity was not after a crisis, but during a time of national danger. He found great opportunities and he rose to them. A great enthusiasm is required to produce really great men, whether orators or statesmen. A gifted man under the influence of a great constructive idea may, with exceptional opportunities, become a Pericles; an extraordinarily favourable combination of such circumstances may give birth to an Alexander. In modern times the greatest eloquence is usually on the side of the opposition, and in all ages a losing cause has tended to produce more conspicuous men. Demosthenes owes his great reputation partly to his exceptional ability, but in very large part also to his opportunities, to the fact that he was fighting against national apathy and foreign aggression for a noble ideal—his conception of Athenian Liberty. A lesser intellect might have shone under such circumstances; and on the other hand Demosthenes, if he had had no opportunity for the speeches against Philip, might have been ranked almost in the same class with such orators as Lysias. § 3 Lysias is no less simple in the arrangement of his subject-matter than in his language. Practically every speech which has come down to us in entirety may be analysed into four elements—preface, narrative, proof, and epilogue. The preface or epilogue may be very slight; the narrative may be so self-evident that proof is practically unnecessary, or on the other hand, there may be hardly any facts to narrate, so that beyond the words of the indictment only an accumulation of proofs is required; but the order of the parts seems to be invariable. We have seen that Andocides instinctively divided up his narrative, where there was a long story to tell, and interspersed the parts with proofs of the details. Isocrates, who states the necessity of the divisions which Lysias tacitly adopted, himself departs from his own rules at times, while Isaeus, by a judicious subdivision and shifting of the parts, contrives, as Dionysius says, to ‘outmanœuvre’ the judges.[120]